


The Unkind Story

by AndreaLyn



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-29
Updated: 2012-04-29
Packaged: 2017-11-04 12:26:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/393828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>His medals went into a box and his shame went with it. His memories have been harder to suppress and his kinship and love for his brothers in arms refuses to bow down.</i> Liebgott tries to hide away his stories and Webster can't manage to tell his.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Unkind Story

_San Francisco, 1945_

**OCTOBER**

The city’s a din of noise to Liebgott. It’s all a fucking monotonous haze and driving in from Oakland every morning is the one time he gets any kind of respite. He beats the traffic and comes in earlier when the sun is still rising; peaking above the clouds and making the world look pink and orange. It’s times like those that Liebgott can have a moment to himself and think, _this is what I left to fight for_.

Then the noise starts and he’s right back in the thick of things he’d rather not deal with. Cars honk and couples bicker and the most inane problems come to him. He listens to them talk in his backseat and thinks to himself, _I fought a war to keep you safe_ and wonders if any of his passengers can see him for the man he is.

He never speaks to them. 

They tell him their destination and he takes them there. He never speaks. He doesn’t tell them about the war or about Bastogne. He doesn’t say that when it rains, his toes get a chill to them that he fears will become permanent thanks to an icy winter in hell. He doesn’t talk about a mountaintop in Austria and he doesn’t talk about his brothers. 

At home, his siblings wait for him to return. He goes home to his family, but he doesn’t say anything to them, either. He’s silent and still, a contrast to the Joseph Liebgott that left for war. 

Today is rife with fog, last night’s rain having evaporated hours back. Liebgott’s sticking to the pier and looking for a tourist that’s looking to go far. He could use the fare and the long drive to clear his head, sticking along the coast and maybe heading to the airport. The weather’s keeping too many people from flooding the streets and he’s just about given up on getting a passenger when someone slides into the back, slamming the door.

“The Fairmont, please.”

At first, Liebgott swears that he’s been drinking or sleeping on the job. There are certain things from the war that he’s brought back with him and locked away – either in a metaphorical or a literal sense, those big fancy words that Web taught him. His medals went into a box and his shame went with it. His memories have been harder to suppress and his kinship and love for his brothers in arms refuses to bow down.

Liebgott looks in the mirror carefully, past the fringe of his lanky strands of hair. One glance, then a second, then a cautious third proves that Liebgott hasn’t gone around the bend.

David Kenyon Webster is sitting in the goddamn backseat of his cab. 

At first, Liebgott doesn’t know what he oughta do. He lets habit take over and the first impulse that crosses his mind tells him to lock the doors. He jams his hand down on the lock, aware that Web has got his own mechanism in the back, so he’s shit out of luck if he decides to do a duck and roll out of the car.

Webster doesn’t initiate conversation. Liebgott doesn’t even know if he’s looked to see who’s driving him and there’s an innate little voice in Liebgott’s mind that loathes Web for this. The classism had always been rife and a point of contention and here it is, keeping them oceans apart when Liebgott could reach back and touch a man he hasn’t seen in months.

Finally, when the creep up the hill is slowing to a close, Liebgott knows he has to say something or Web is gonna be gone and out of the car. 

“You gonna look at me or you just gonna stare out the window and avoid even taking one look at the guy who’s driving you to your temporary home?” He sounds angrier than he means to be, but Liebgott supposes that he lost his tact and his dial on his emotions back in Europe. The war-theater took a whole damn lot from him. What’s one more sacrifice in the wake of many?

Liebgott’s derisive tone pulls one of the funniest damn expressions he’s ever seen from Webster and in that one moment, it’s almost like nothing’s changed at all. Liebgott shifts the cab into park under the overhang of the hotel and leans back in his seat. He pushes shaky fingers through his greasy hair and manages the best smile he’s got.

As far as happiness goes, it’s lacking.

“Just think. You could’ve passed me a balled-up twenty, slammed the door, and you never would have known,” Liebgott says as a hint of desperate sadness lurks around his words. He can see it happened too-clearly and then Web would just walk out of his life like every other guy has. Every single one of them that could’ve understood him is gone. Easy is family, but family doesn’t like it when the going gets rough. Sure, they’re there, but the rough is so spread out that everybody’s got needs and Liebgott’s not selfish.

Webster looks good. The man always looks good. He has an unsurpassed talent for taking the grime and the grit of reality and turning it into something almost ethereal. He’s wearing a sandy jacket over a white button-down and a pair of denims. 

“You look like an author,” Liebgott says the thought on the tip of his tongue.

“I...” Webster is still clearly stunned from the shock of Liebgott, but there’s a flicker of appreciation and gratitude on his face, so it looks like he’s managed to soften the blow of his first words with a compliment. “Joe,” he breathes out his name and Liebgott takes a moment to lick his lips and bask in the sensation of someone talking to him like a person. 

His customers don’t give a shit about him.

His family doesn’t know what to do with him.

His brothers in arms haven’t been able to figure him out.

And yet, here’s Webster saying his name in such a simple way that Liebgott feels like he’s ready to come loose, like a thread frayed on a sweater and ready to be pulled. Liebgott turns the keys in the ignition and presses his lips together until the blood ebbs away and they go numb. He feels like he can’t breathe and suddenly all he wants is to go back to Haguenau and dingy basements where Web’s hands are on him and mapping out trails in the grime and the dust that settled into his skin – the layer that no shower could ever really banish.

“What are you even doing here, Web?” Liebgott asks hoarsely, moments away from demanding they go up to Webster’s hotel room. “Thought you were supposed to be back on the East Coast getting your fancy degree.”

“Plans change,” Webster says and he sounds haunted. 

Liebgott wonders if that’s how he sounds when his parents always ask him how he’s doing and he tells them, without fail, ‘everything is gonna be just fine’ as if he’s going to start believing it if he keeps repeating it. 

“Joe,” Webster says, suddenly, like he’s been struck by lightning or some kind of good idea. Joe’s not sure what to call it, but he’s not the writer under the roof. “Joe,” Web says again with a heavy helping of desperation. “Park the cab around the corner. Come inside. _Please_.”

In that one moment, you would think that it’s Web who’s at his wit’s end and doesn’t know what to make of himself or do with his life. You’d think that Web didn’t have any control. Joe smiles unkindly and keeps his eyes on Web like if he looks away, this is all going to evaporate in some kind of fever dream. 

He shoves the car into drive and takes it around the side streets, the car creaking when Joe shoves it into park on a perilous slope. One wrong move and the car’s going to go careening down one of San Francisco’s steep streets and his livelihood will be gone. His mind isn’t even fixed near that issue considering he’s busy being transported back a year ago, two, _four_ and all he can think about is the war.

He’s spent so long trying to banish it from his thoughts and now that it’s flooding back, he finds that he’s missed it.

The war turned him into a different man, but it’d been for a purpose.

Now, he’s that man, the man that his country produced to fight the good fight, but there’s no battles to win. Now, Joe Liebgott has to be the kind of man who rides up a mountaintop in Austria and does something that his mother wouldn’t be proud of. He has to be that man and he has no outlet for the horrifying things that war makes men do.

With Webster here, at least he thinks that someone understands.

“Upstairs?” Joe suggests hoarsely when they get out and he shoves forcibly at Web’s hand when Web buries his hand in his pocket to dig out a twenty. “Don’t even fucking try, Web,” Liebgott snaps. 

Webster hesitates and the crumpled twenty rests in the air between them until Joe reaches for it, rips it in two, and lets the wind take it. He’d needed that money, sure, but he refuses to take it from Webster as much as he’d refuse to take money from any member of Easy. The war might be over, but there are some connections that Joe won’t sever, not just yet.

Web leads him down a long, luxurious hallway filled with items that probably cost more than Joe’s whole life could manage to be worth. His Ma could probably feed the whole family for a year on the price of one of the chairs alone. 

They stop at room 203 and Liebgott leans against the wall while Web turns the key and leads him inside to a stately room.

“Looks like you’re still living off the family’s pretty penny,” Liebgott says as he eyes the room, dropping his rucksack on the ground and heading for the window to check out the view. Sometime in the last few years, he’s learned to appreciate a good view. Must’ve been all those days spent in basements and holes in the ground. 

He turns to anticipate Web’s sharp retort, but he gets nothing. All he gets is the sight of Web licking his lips and sliding his suit jacket over the desk chair. The room looks bare and clean, unlived in. 

“Web, what are you doing here?”

“Would you believe me if I said I came to procure a book deal?”

Liebgott eyes Web warily. “Look, I may not have your pretty Harvard degree, but I can smell bullshit a mile away. What the fuck are you doing trying to pull one over me?” He’s edgy and his fingers are twitching to do something, but his cigarettes are across the room in his bag. Web’s between Liebgott and the bag and he’s not ready to push past him. He’s not ready for that kind of argument.

“I’m writing. I am, I’m still writing. I’m cobbling together pieces of my journal, but no one,” Web says and when he gets to ‘no one’, he falters heavily, casting his gaze to the ground, “No one wants to hear my story.”

Liebgott stares at the ground to avoid the guilty feeling brewing within him because he doesn’t want to hear the story. He wants to forget the story. 

“No one wants to hear _our_ story,” Webster amends, like it’ll make an inch of goddamn difference. 

Liebgott’s angry. He’s so angry and he’s been this way since he got back, but here’s Webster telling him that the world should know about the things they did and he can’t take it for a second more. He crosses the space between them and _shoves_ and pushes and pulls until he’s got Web sprawled on the bed with a look of confusion on his face.

“Joe, what...?”

“No one needs to hear,” he gets out, his voice strangled. “Shit, Web, I’m trying on a daily basis to forget what I did. You think I want a book out there so the entire goddamn world knows about the horrible things we saw? About the shit we did? We fought a war, we won it, don’t you think we won the chance to put it all behind us?” 

He’s standing above the bed and Web hasn’t moved. He hasn’t even attempted to get up or to retaliate with all those pretty words he’s fond of fighting with. 

“Fuck, Web,” Liebgott protests. “You’ve got all these words. You couldn’t write about something else?”

The silence weighs heavily between them. Eventually, one of them will have to break the silence and speak, but Liebgott stays stubborn in his insistence that it won’t be him. 

“It’s worse if the world forgets what we went to war for,” Webster finally says. Liebgott’s grown weary in the silence that encompasses the room and has crawled onto the bed with one knee pressed to fancy fabric. He reaches back to toe off his heavy boots, crawling forward until he’s atop Web on hands and knees, no parts of their bodies touching. “If no one remembers what we fought for, we run the risk of repeating history. People need to learn from our mistakes.”

Web reaches up and presses the palm of his hand to Liebgott’s cheek.

It’s like he already knows what Liebgott is thinking.

“No one is going to blame us for what we did in a time of war when we had justice on our side,” Web says, his thumb brushing along the hollowed edge of Liebgott’s cheeks. The shadows and hollows weren’t there months ago. They’ve developed since he’s been back, but Web doesn’t say anything about them. He just traces his thumb back and forth over them and it’s the first real contact Liebgott’s had since he got back.

“Jesus, Web,” Liebgott practically howls out the words, the pain heavy in his throat and it catches on the words, polluting them by the time they make the air. “You really think people need to know about the kind of fucking mistakes we made?” _That I made?_

Web pushes his palm around to cup at Liebgott’s neck and coaxes him down until their bodies are pressed flush together. Webster’s shirt smells of starch where Liebgott presses his nose and he breathes in raggedly.

The city is still loud outside and in the morning, Web’s probably going to leave. 

“I came to write,” Web finally explains when the sun begins to descend towards the horizon and rush hour comes to a close. “No one is buying my book and so I came to a city that I didn’t know, but I did. I knew this place because you knew it. So I came here.”

“Were you looking for me?” Liebgott’s tongue feels heavy and his words seem to match.

“Not intentionally. I admit, I thought to myself that it wouldn’t be so bad,” Webster murmurs, staring up at the ceiling. They’ve unearthed cigarettes from Web’s suit jacket and fill up the room with the dense stench of smoke, letting it sink down into the fabric of the pillows and the sheets. “I didn’t think I’d find you the way I did. What happened to a big house, rooms full of little Liebgotts?”

“Plans change,” Liebgott says, echoing Web’s words from before. 

He loosens the top two buttons of Web’s crisp shirt and rubs two fingertips until they rest above his heart. His other hand lazily holds the cigarette and they lie there smoking.

In the morning, Web is going to leave and Liebgott is going to go back to the city streets. His family will ask him where he was the night before. He’ll manage a terse smile and say that he was with family. 

They won’t ask beyond that. 

As he was leaving, Web had stopped to press a card into Liebgott’s palm. The early light of morning was spilling into the room and had highlighted Web’s unshaven face. It had made Liebgott want to kiss him, more than anything else. “Next week, call me, we’ll get a drink. Promise me,” Web had demanded. 

Liebgott’s been wary of making promises since he got back, but standing there in the sunlight with the hint of exhaustion lurking around his shadow, he can’t find it in him to argue. 

He’s got a dozen stories in him and Web knows every last one. 

He’s willing to listen and forget at the same time as he tries to hear them and turn them into _history_. So Liebgott will go to a bar in a week and he’ll sit there with a drink in hand. He’ll tell a story about the man he became and the things he did in a hushed voice and Webster will promise not to write it down. 

There are plenty of other mistakes from the war to learn from. There’s no reason that Liebgott’s have to number amongst the rest.


End file.
